Stray '\342' in C++ Program

The lines

 size_t startpos = str.find_first_not_of(” \t”); 
 size_t endpos = str.find_last_not_of(” \t”); 

have some "special" kind of double quotes, try the following:

 size_t startpos = str.find_first_not_of(" \t"); 
 size_t endpos = str.find_last_not_of(" \t"); 

This sort of error message, error: stray ‘\xyz’ in program, can appear with any other character or symbol that is not recognized by the compiler as a legal one.

Sharing my personal experience:

 - bool less<const char∗>(const char∗ a, const char∗ b)
 - bool less<const char*>(const char* a, const char* b)

The former one is copy-pasted from a PDF file. It doesn't compile.

The latter one compiles as expected.

You can use the sed command to fix these issues.

This will give you a quick preview of what will be replaced.

sed s/[”“]/'"'/g File.txt

This will do the replacements and put the replacement in a new file called WithoutSmartQuotes.txt.

sed s/[”“]/'"'/g File.txt > WithoutSmartQuotes.txt

This will overwrite the original file.

sed -i ".bk" s/[”“]/'"'/g File.txt